


That's Not How The Story Goes.

by Mitooshka



Series: Even Metal Tarnishes. [4]
Category: Metal Gear, Phantom Pain - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Ansgt and death, M/M, Major Character(s), Major character death - Freeform, Spoilers for Metal Gear Solid 1, Spoilers for Phantom Pain, major manpain, what if scenerio
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-30
Updated: 2015-10-30
Packaged: 2018-04-28 20:36:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5104892
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mitooshka/pseuds/Mitooshka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"What the hell is a tragedy? I am."<br/>-- 'The Unabridged Journals', Sylvia Plath.</p>
<p>// Years later, Kazuhira reminisces on how his life had been and the endings he had wanted to write for himself. How things are not what they end up being, no matter how much you struggle and turn against fate. The way a person's life is written can sometimes be in stone rather than ink.</p>
            </blockquote>





	That's Not How The Story Goes.

 

 

 

            He is in his fifties and the age hasn’t yet worn him thin, though by no means is he considered ‘young’. His hair was still all there, his mind a little less so but that was to be expected from the scattered stories that he held inside him. Sometimes his limbs ached.  
  
  
            No, by no means did Kazuhira think himself a youngster, akin to even the likes of David. Rather, he regarded himself as a man that had endured so much that it was okay to have cracks and fissures between his character.  
  
  
            He stretches his back out, hearing pops and creaks of bones shifting back into place as he gets up from his bed. The air is cold, normal for the climate of Alaska which was as barren and bleak as the landscape during heavy snow fall. Every now and again a bright sunny day finds him and the crystal mountains around him show their faces.  
  
  
            He supposes that this empty escape he had gone to after all the years dealing with one military thing or another was better than resting six feet underground.  
  
  
            His solitude is kind to him and he relishes in the loneliness he has gathered through the years. He still keeps in contact with David, still tries to be involved but with the world the way it was, it was getting easier to shut himself out.  
  
  
            Wrapping himself in the blanket he had been laying in, he walked through the small cabin like a king surveying his kingdom. Outside he heard the unmistakable yapping of his huskies and he brushed aside a window curtain to look. The air seemed still and the ground looked like it had been littered with diamonds while he was sleeping.  
  
  
            Kaz can see from his vantage point just the front half of one of his dogs and he smiles a rare one that crinkles his face.  
  
  
            Years ago he remembers the feel of salty air on his face, ringing of bells and the heavy footsteps of soldiers. A heavy hand on his shoulder, the smell of a cigar and he rubs his eyes. Flashes of memories that he had buried deep within his conscious, still seem to plague him like a gross illness.  
  
  
            Stepping away from the window, he turns on the heater that helps keep him from getting too chilly. Makes sure water is ready to boil for coffee and sits down heavily in a well-worn armchair. His jaw tightens when thinking of his dogs, remembering a different form of dogs from years back.  
  
  
            Kaz rubbed his eyes, gray and almost milky in the way they look, wondering what Venom would have think of him sitting in his chair all this time later. Whether he was a coward and a fool for running away into the barren snows of Alaska, or if he would come and join him. He wondered what sort of life he would have lived if the Snake he had gotten used to, had stayed alive.  
  
  
            “You’re going soft.” He murmurs to himself and pushes himself out of the chair, ambling over to the kettle and throwing down the blanket he had been wrapped in. Moments of silence pass him by as he fiddles around in the small kitchen finally leaning against the counter, his hand rubbing at the aching tendons of his bad leg.  
  
  
            _Years ago I had plans, hopes and dreams- well alright, perhaps they weren’t hopes necessarily but they were something. That was the story I had wanted to write, I had wanted to read well into my old age. Not this._  
  
  
            Memories flashed behind his mind of days long since passed. Meeting Nadine. His daughter, Catherine. The news of Venom’s death. Training. And training. And training. David. Training. David. Training. Alaska. The first time he breathed in cold air.  
  
  
             His memory reels and suddenly flips to before all that. In the forgotten recesses of his mind he thinks of the time on the deck, with the sun setting heavily behind them.  
  
  
              _Snake’s hand on his arm, steadying him as he lowered him into a sitting position._  
  
  
_“So you think this is all going to work out somehow?”_  
  
  
_“You don’t sound like him when you say things like that.” Kaz’s voice had been, still thick with the anger and grief he felt when he found out Ocelot had lied. That John had lied. This John possibly didn't know the weight of the sins he was carrying._  
  
  
_“I didn’t know I had to sound like him all the time.” Snake said evenly as Kaz leaned his head against one of the bars of the deck railing. His cheek resting on his good arm as he listened to the waves crashing against the sides. He heard birds in the distance, talking far off to the side and Venom’s breath._  
  
  
_“I guess I want you to sound like him…and I don’t. For years I thought he was my friend, even when I was rotting away in there…I still held onto the hope that I would be saved.”_  
  
  
_Snake hadn’t said anything, just leaned against the railing as well, letting his arms dangle from between the bars. His prosthetic had flashed in the sunlight, a violent streak of red that engrained itself in Kaz’s mind. In the other, a cigar with the tip burning brightly._  
  
  
_Kaz had closed his eyes for a moment and then was aware of a warmth by his side. Snake had shifted over, his face still turned out to the sunset._  
  
  
_After a long time he exhaled through his nose, shots of smoke darting out like a dragon in a fairytale. Kaz wondered if this made him the damsel in distress, held by the merciless beast and he had to laugh at the sentimental thought. What sort of beast was Snake when he sat beside him, the creator and puppet master?_  
  
  
_“I don’t think people like us have happy endings, Kaz. I don’t think we can always expect to be saved.” Snake answered after those long moments._  
  
  
_“I would have liked to try.” Kaz had rubbed his cheek against his sleeve, trying to keep his head from pounding or at least to stop it matching his heart. Even when Snake placed a heavy arm around his waist like he did so often helping him out of the copter. It was the real one too, not the prosthetic._  
  
  
_“Guess we just have to count ourselves lucky for as long as we can.”_  
  
  
_“Guess we do.”_  
  
  
                                                             

* * *

 

When Kaz feels the gas that had been filtered into his home, take effect he tries to fight it as long as he can. His legs grow weaker and his vision all of a sudden becomes rather horizontal; standing no longer an option.  
  
  
            There’s heaviness to his limbs, like no matter the strength in his body he would not be able to lift them. His head, foggy, his grip on reality and consciousness loosening and he tries to hang on desperately for some sort of anchor.  
  
  
            He remembers his hand.  
  
  
            The way the sunset had cast everything in orange, like it had been on fire.  
  
  
            When that warmth had settled on his lower back, traveling upwards where it pushed aside the collar of his trench coat, pressing to his bare skin.  
  
  
            The silence had been deafening when Kaz’s eyes meet Venom’s behind his aviators, the blue startling him.  
  
  
            The warmth.  
  
  
            Kaz slips into darkness, his chest constricting until he can feel his lungs wheeze in exertion.  
  
  
            The warmth.  
  
  
            He dies alone, earnestly wishing that someone had been there to hold whatever broken part of him there was left. He dies alone realizing that despite all the irony in happy ends, stories do not end that way.


End file.
